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Wednesday, November 6, 2013

"What are you making?" Wednesday

In the crafty blogosphere, there are several named days of the week when participating blogs all unite on a particular topic. They usually have some alliteration to them. The ones I'm most familiar with are WIP Wednesday and FO Friday. WIP = "work in progress" and FO = "finished object".

It's a fun idea, and I thought about joining the blogroll, but then it hit me - "What are you making" also starts with W, and has the fun acronym WAYM, which is fun to say if you pronounce it as "wha-yahm". So let's start a new thing! I hereby present What Are You Making Wednesdays, where I will hopefully post about stuff I'm working on right now. I might decide to do a roundup of all my WIPs, or post about a couple things, or just one thing that I'm really excited about. Today I'm going to do the latter.

Oshima comes from the latest installment from Brooklyn Tweed, which I've been following for a while but had yet to actually make any of their garments. All of them are stunning. Each lookbook they produce, without fail, makes me want to pick up my needles and Knit All The Things. This one in particular caught my eye - I've been wanting something to wear exactly the way it's pictured here. Sweatshirts are not good for me. When I wear them I feel like a kid and am sometimes mistaken for one (recently, a cable salesperson rang my doorbell and *almost* asked to speak to my parents). But this has all the casual ease and comfort of a sweatshirt while also looking awesome and put together. It also offered an opportunity to work on my brioche knitting skills, which previously consisted of "I knit a scarf that one time". The icing on the cake? Cowl neck. Wonderful things, cowl neck sweaters.

When I went to Rhinebeck Sheep & Wool festival a couple weeks ago, this was one of the objects on my shortlist of "stuff to acquire supplies for". Acquire I did, and I cast on the next day.

This is Oasis Aussie Worsted. So far, I absolutely love it. Smooth and easy to work with, not superwash, kind of a standard sweater wool, and it's just ever so slightly puffier than a regular worsted (the put-up is 200 yds / 100 g). When washed, it puffs up even more and relaxes into a very soft and squishable fabric. I would definitely work with this again.

The following week I had 3 full days of classes at work, with a teacher who very amicably told me it was completely fine if I knitted during lectures, "as long as I didn't mind listening to his yarns", yuk yuk yuk. By the time that week was over, this had happened:

And now, a week after that, the body is entirely done, washed, and blocked, and the sleeves are well on their way.

(No pic of the sleeves at the moment, but I'm working them 2-at-a-time and I'm about 9-10 inches in.)

It's getting cold out and I can't WAIT to wear this sweater. It's gonna be great.

P.S. here's my 30x30 outfit for the day. Ignore the very unflattering wrinkles - this was after I got home from my 1.5 hour commute (which should only take 30 minutes)...

(@bofishie I am a bad blogger, responding to comments so late - but I saw you in RL so it's OK, right...?) Yeah, I love the button up under sweaters thing too. I only have 1 button-up so far, so this may be a problem...we'll see!

Thanks! I *love* that skirt - it's so incredibly warm. Everyone laughed when they saw me knitting a skirt out of bulky wool, but I get so much use out of it on chilly days. Plus it's a stretchy pencil skirt. Can't really beat that combo.

About Me

I do all sorts of crafty things, including but not limited to: knitting, sewing, spinning, jewelry making, interior decorating (well, I like to pretend anyway), baking, cooking, canning, and gardening. I currently work as a software developer at a major research corporation, but my dream is to own an alpaca farm, spin & process fiber, and maybe own a knitting/fabric store somewhere nearby.